Over the years, congestion at port and inland terminals has grown. For congestion, energy and environmental reasons, rail has become a preferable option for inland freight distribution. Despite the relatively high embedded costs in connection with intermodal rail, rail is currently an attractive option for containerized goods carried over long distances. Among the embedded costs, there is a need to improve and make more efficient the multiple operations required for transfers.
Thus, there is a need to make new terminal designs and automated transfer management systems at terminals, hubs and distribution centers. This could result in efficiency advances and productivity gains to improve the economics for both long and short haul intermodal movements, including port shuttle trains. New handling systems and apparatus could lower fixed costs and make the intermodal sector more price competitive, improve time and reliability and make the intermodal sector more service competitive.
There is a need to automate, improve and better manage the handling of containers and minimize congestion at terminals, hubs and distribution centers. There is a need to improve terminal dwell time. Terminal dwell time is an important factor affecting railroad network efficiency. The more reliable and efficient the terminals (shorter average terminal dwell times, shorter time buffers and smaller capacity buffers), the more fluid the network, and consequently the greater the average train speeds. Equipment utilization improves as well as fewer well cars and locomotives are needed to move traffic because the equipment is cycled faster.
Further, there is a need for transfer operations to be streamlined. Currently, intermodal operations are equipment- and labor-intensive. The costs of providing a terminal facility includes the gate system and gate personnel, hostler and hostler drivers, employees who check for mis-parked containers, and security personnel. For the trackside loading/unloading of containers, this includes gantry cranes and operators, and personnel to secure and release the inter box connectors (IBC's) for double stack railcars. For chassis storage and the remote container storage yard, a storage yard supervisor, and two or more cranes and crane operators.
Design capacity of the terminal is an issue as well. Whenever a terminal begins to exceed its design capacity (e.g., low stack to high stack container storage), manning and equipment costs for ground operations begin to increase dramatically, making transfer operations increasingly less competitive.
Referring to FIG. 1, a simplified overhead view of a conventional intermodal transfer at a rail terminal is shown. A typical rail-truck intermodal transfer can require about ten labor- and equipment-intensive operations. Higher rail line haul costs of intermodal versus rail carload service reflect the labor, energy, and capital intensive nature of current intermodal and transmodal container transfers. Consequently, reducing the number of operations, and the equipment and labor to perform the operations, there is a need to lower terminal-related transfer costs for inland goods movement.
Total transfer intermodal costs are equally affected by the distance of drayage, equipment utilization (truck/chassis) in both directions, and the time required of drivers to pick up and drop off containers at the terminal and the distribution center. Except for the very largest of customers, most notably UPS and the US Postal Service, intermodal drayage service increasingly has been provided by independent truckers, with independent third-party agents selling the service. Intermodal rail terminals must transport and stack containers at remote sites because these third party agents do not pick up containers sequentially—as they are unloaded. Containers are picked up, usually before incurring a demurrage charge, at the convenience of the customer who often uses the ports and rail terminals as supply chain buffers. The free time allowance varies by terminal, generally 3 or more days at the ports and 24 to 48 hours at high volume rail terminals.
High volume and long dwell time requires inbound containers to be shuttled to a remote storage yard to await pickup, and containers have to be shuttled from a remote storage area to the ramp operation for loading onto a double-stacked car for outbound service. Trackside storage and large overhead cranes are not used at terminals using conventional operating methods, despite its many advantages (e.g, reduced number of lifts and shuttling of containers from remote storage), because it would generate too much congestion within the terminal by trucks waiting in line for the overhead crane to load or unload containers to or from the trackside storage area to the truck line carrier's chassis.
Inbound container operations, are shown in FIG. 1. They typically require the following steps: First, shown as step 1, Inter Box Connectors (IBC's) are unlocked. Second, shown as item 2, a chassis is removed from a storage area and brought trackside. At step 3, a top container is unloaded to a chassis from a railcar. At step 4, the IBC's are removed and put in a pocket of a railcar. At step 5, a hostler hooks up the chassis. At step 6, a hostler brings a container to a remote storage area. At step 7, the container is unloaded at the storage area. At step 8, a drayage driver checks in at an entrance gate and is provided the location of a container to be picked up. At step 9, a crane loads a container on a chassis. And, at step 10, a drayage driver checks out at an exit gate. Generally, steps 2, 3, 5-10 are repeated for a container in a bottom cell of a double stack railcar.
In terminal applications, there are three main logistic processes that interact with each other: (1) loading and unloading containers from trains and ships; (2) storing containers; and (3) receiving and delivering containers. Devices and systems to streamline and make seamless these processes and simplify transfers are needed, to improve reliability and reduce the transfer costs.
In more detail, a top priority in the transportation industry, and particularly in hub, rail and port intermodal applications, is to minimize dwell time. For example, it is desirable to have the shortest time possible to load and/or reload containers to and from double stack railcars to storage areas, commonly stacked in proximity to tracks. Thus, it is desirable to reduce the time to unload and reload containers between double stack railcars and storage area, in rail and hub applications. There is a similar desire in port applications.
It would be beneficial to have a device, such as an OBC, to install an interlock system from a side in proximity to corner fittings and/or corner castings, which are on many conventional containers.
It would also be desirable to have an OBC adapted to connect and disconnect containers from a side, in connection with double stack railcar applications. For example, a device which can easily allow a worker to disconnect it from two containers when a train arrives at an intermodal terminal, and then allows a crane operator to unload the two containers and reload a double stack railcar with two new containers, in a minimal number of cycles. For example, once a locomotive releases a train in a terminal or hub, it would be beneficial to have a device and method, such as an OBC, which allows a worker to easily release and remove it and allows a crane operator to unload a top and bottom container immediately, resulting in emptying a first double stack can quickly. The crane operator can then reload the double stack car with different containers quickly.
In contrast, conventional Inter Box Connectors (IBCs) in a double stack railcar application, require: 1. a worker to release or unlock an IBC; 2. an overhead crane operator to remove a top container; 3. a worker to remove the IBC from a corner casting in a bottom container; and 4. an overhead crane operator can then remove a bottom container to a storage area. This process is slow, cumbersome and labor intensive.
There is a need for an improved device and method to transport and handle containers in and out of hubs and terminals, which is fast, simple and less labor intensive.